Dinner with Keir Starmer

I’m a digital nomad. I sit outside cafés drinking espresso, a huge scarf round my neck making it difficult to move my head. The glare of the wall behind me is reflected perfectly opaque on my laptop. It was my usual shtick, editors for newspapers and magazines would pitch me stories, I smoke a cigarette, drink another espresso. I yawn as I scroll through the dozens of job offers. Most of it was dreck. What wasn’t dreck was dangerous, not that I had a problem with danger, but I was babysitting a kitten (Canadian Sphynx) and couldn’t afford to get hospitalised. Who would feed the kitten?

I get a message. TIME magazine. Basically a photograph with some articles attached to the back, and barely any were about clocks. The Editor, Sam Jacobs, appears on a video call.

“Sam, you son of a bitch. How are the grandkids?” I say, ordering another eight espressos.

“Cut the shit, we need you in London, like yesterday.”

“I thought the editor of TIME magazine would know what day it is. What’s the hustle?”

“We got you dinner with Keir.”

“Dullea?”

“Starmer goddamn it! The Prime Minister of England. Ring any bells?” shouts Sam. His blurred background momentarily disappears, showing his desk piled with pizza boxes.

“Sam, you back on the pizza again? I thought you were clean.”

“Organising this dinner date knocked me off course. I just ate nine deep pans.” He says, tears welling up in his eyes.

“Okay, I’ll go for dinner with him. Call your sponsor and take it easy, okay Sam?” I say, pouring all the espressos into a big cup and downing it in one. I book a train to London, in the taxi to the station I read up more about Keir and wonder what he his hiding.

By the time I get to London the sun is beginning to set on the Thames. Effluvium floats on its oily surface, a whale had recently swam up the river and beached itself just by Parliament. The stench of rotting meat lay thickly through the capital so heavy it made your eyes water. Taxi drives past the Ministry of Defence, the London Eye, the Tate Modern. After a while I realise we’re going on a sight seeing tour and I needed to be at 10 Downing Street in five minutes. I get out of the taxi and hop on the back of an Uber motorcycle. I link my hands around the riders waist as we slalom between cars, buses and street furniture. Finally I’m there.

I knock on the famous black door. Keir answers. We greet each other and I give him a crushing handshake. He winces slightly, laughing nervously.

“That’s actually one heck of a grip you have.” he says.

“Thanks. One of my hobbies is squeezing tennis balls. Never know when you might need a good clench.” I whisper, still not letting go. His legs begin to shake.

“Please.” He says, looking worried. I release. There’s a little bit of steam coming off my palm as I walk in.

10 Downing Street smells of damp. Pathetic little moths buzz around the bare lightbulbs that hang from the ceiling. Keir Starmer is describing the various features of the hallways, the subjects of paintings, pointing out various relics that were on loan from the British Museum. Every Prime Minister could decide how they would decorate the traditional home of the country’s leader. Keir seemed to have an affection for modernity, sleek designs, chrome, the kind of shapes made from right angles rather than curves. We hit the dining room.

“I have made a leek soup for starters. Is that alright?” he says, pulling back my chair. I sit down and look at the thin soup in front of me.

“Leek soup? You better get that bandaged up.”

“What?”

“Like, you’re leaking soup. You must have a hole in your belly and the food falls out.” I say. He titters.

“That’s preposterous.” He says, still laughing as he sips from his spoon.

“So. How you liking being Prime Minister, big man?”

“Oh.” He says, checking behind him.

“I mean you.”

“Ah yes. Being a Prime Minister has its challenges. But also its opportunities.”

“That’s right. So which is it?”

“Huh?”

“Do you like the job or not?”

“Oh yes, yes, haha. Yes, but I must say, there’s a lot to learn about running a country. Not the sort of thing they teach you at university.” He says, smiling.

“Yeah, what’s so hard about it?”

“Let me show you.” He says, dabbing his mouth. I follow him down a hallway, he punches a string of numbers into a keypad. We enter a large room filled with monitors and desks.

“This is where I run the country.” He says. He then proceeds to go around the various machines and points out what they do. He turns the traffic lights from red to green on one panel. On another he can twist a nob that changes the value of money. There’s another switch that has the word ‘War’ printed above it.

“So what do you think?” says Keir, demonstrating something that looks like a bicycle pump that somehow controls the weather.

“I think this is a bunch of bullshit. What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything.” He says. I go up and slap him.

“I can smell your lies. They smell bitter to me, like a salted crust of dry sweat. I hate that smell.” I say, taking a step closer to him.

“Let’s go back to the dining room, we still have to eat the main course.” He says, trying to step past me. I grab his face with one hand and squeeze his cheeks so that his lips look like the number eight.

“This will be the last time I ask. What are you hiding from me?” I say, my mouth by his ear.

“Okay. Just promise you won’t tell anyone.” He says. He leads me down a passage, a staircase, through a room filled with whirring servers. Finally we get to the end of an impossibly long staircase. Keir takes a keyring out of his pocket, the shaking of his hands make them chime together as he unlocks the door. We enter.

In the middle of the dark room there is a cage with a figure inside it. As we approach it looks up and I am caught without breath. It was another Keir Starmer.

“How is this possible? Is he your twin?”

“Twin? No. All Prime Ministers are cloned when they reach office. Its a flesh backup in case of accident, illness, that kind of thing.” He says, walking around the cage. The other Keir looks thin beneath the greasy hair and beard that hang from his head.

“Let me out of here! I’m the real Keir!” he calls from the cage. The free Keir laughs, taking a stick leaning against the wall and poking it through the bars of the cage.

“Do you want a go?” laughs the Prime Minister.

“This doesn’t seem ethical.” I say, uncertain. The one in the cage crawls towards me, sobbing.

“It’s just a copy of me, it doesn’t matter. You can piss on it if you like.”

“Get me out of here.” Says the other.

“I don’t need a piss. But I am getting hungry. Shall we go back upstairs?”

“Come on, don’t be a spoil sport. We can let it out and chase it if you want. It won’t fight back.” Says Keir, leaning the stick against the wall.

“Really?” I say. The Prime Minister laughs, taking out his keys and going to the door.

“You know, I was worried you’d be upset. But I’m glad I get to show someone else.” He says, unlocking the cage. As soon as the door opens I push him in, grabbing the other Keir as we back out. The Prime Minister gets up.

“Very funny. Now let me out.” He says, meanwhile his clone is knelt by my feet and wailing.

“I’m the original Keir! It was me all along!” says the clone. I don’t know. But with a shave and a haircut and fifty thousand calories, he would quickly resemble the man now trapped inside the cage. I hoist him up and we leave the prison.

“Come back! Come back!” the cries are muffled behind soundproof walls and floors. As we ascend the staircase, the other Keir continues to thank me.

“How can I ever repay you?” he says.

“The normal way, with money.” I say.

After half an hour and a quick makeover, I leave the new Prime Minister to fatten up. My work here is done. I do a write up of the meal, leaving everything out with the clone stuff and send it to TIME. As it stood, it was a ten thousand word article about eating Leek soup. Not my best work. But I had made a promise to my new friend. The Prime Minister’s secret was safe with me. As for what happened to the one in the cage, well, that’s a story for another time.

When I finally got home and fed the bald kitten, it made me wonder. Could you clone a human but give them legs instead of arms? One thing was for certain, my dinner with Keir was illuminating and I believe I saw a side to him the press rarely gets to see. Although they might lose the next election, Labour are really pulling out all the stops when it comes to grown-up politics. Not only are the adults back in the room, they have their sleeves rolled up and the ice breakers are over. Now how about we just give them chance to prove themselves and stop throwing rotten fruit at them all the time, okay?

 

Arts Fast Pass

Teenagers are loitering, unsure what to do, living amongst the corpse that is the death of the high street. The youth of today use the rotten arteries and veins that make up their towns infrastructure, repurposing the crumbling metal and concrete for filming skate disaster videos. In the background a gang of grafitti artists, known as “Sketch Dicks” in the neighbourhood, start a paint war with a rival gang. These gangsters don’t trade bullets, but spraypaint, to solve their disputes. Other kids are jacked into public wi-fi, downloading illicit warez onto untraceable hack decks. These disposable computers often leak toxic chemicals when damaged, causing local wildlife to mutate and plants to die. This is the youth culture of today. But could it be better?

The UK Government has announced a new scheme to get these teens off the streets and into culture hubs. With the new Arts Fast Pass, young people have free access to galleries, theatres, museums and libraries, all stored on one app, the Arts Fast Pass app (only available on iPhone).

The Arts Fast Pass is the brainchild of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport boffins. After two years of various trials, including lethal accidents, the Arts Fast Pass unifies access to all cultural institutes for free. This is a landmark opportunity for the users of Arts Fast Pass to gain their cultural capital, not to mention finding a way to get to know other young people in an inclusive, non-alcohol oriented space.

As part of the Arts Fast Pass softlaunch, journalists were invited to a sneak peek into a vision demo of what Arts Fast Pass could be. The lights in the auditorium dimmed and out marched David Attenborough. The audience started cheering.

“Good evening. As the director of BBC 2 in the sixties, I know a thing or two about technological advancement. That is why I am happy to announce the Arts Fast Pass, now available for all young people aged between nine and fifteen. Or am I?” he says, before disappearing into a cloud of voxels. It was a hologram. There’s a huge thud that shakes the entire auditorium. The words flash on the screen; Arts; Fast; Pass. There is a tiny square in the middle of the screen. It grows bigger. We are zooming through a tunnel, through a picture frame. Three young people are looking back at us. They have a confused look on their faces, causing an audience member to laugh.

“So what is it?” says one of them. The camera flips around. It’s the logo for the Arts Fast Pass.

“Hold on, lemme scan the Qu-ari real quick.” Says another, using their Smartphone camera to access a 16 by 16 black and white matrix file that then loads the website for the Arts Fast Pass.

Introducing the Arts Fast Pass. Your fast pass to arts and culture in Britain.

The three youths gather round their phone with their mouths open but the muscles around the lips flexed in such a way that they are each identical.

“Arts Fast Pass? What do I get outta it?” says another youth.

There’s a simple explanation on the screen, a wide font on a morphing yellow and gold background.

The Arts Fast Pass tracks every gallery visit, every theatre show, every music gig, every opera and tracks it in a personalised profile that only you can have. Every time you visit, you can share where you went with your friends, not to mention the chance to make new ones.

The Arts Fast Pass not only tracks where you go, but where you should go. It utilises an on-board, personalised AI assistant to track what went well with and well, what um, didn’t.

The camera shows two people looking confused at an abstract painting before looking towards each other and shrugging.

With the Arts Fast Pass, you now have unlimited access to the best arts and culture in the country. So what are you waiting for? Get your Arts Fast Pass today. Just download the application from the Apple Store.

The advert finished and the lights went up. All of the journalists in the room looked to each other, stunned. What an amazing achievement for the future of arts and culture in this country. By giving cultural access to people at an age where people are influenced easily, this solidifies lifelong fans of cultural institutions, and supporters of public arts funding for the future. The Arts Fast Pass is going to be the next viral trend, and if you don’t use it, you’re not liked and will probably be alone the rest of your life.

A government spokesperson had this to say:

“The Arts Fast Pass gives a fast pass to the arts for our young people and carers. Not only does it give them access to world quality arts and culture, it also doubles as a streaming service for every theatre, opera house and dance arena in the country. Users can watch their favourite plays and comment in real time with a chat function. This combines social media with arts and culture. The Arts Fast Pass is the next killer app.”

And this journalist has to agree. The Arts Fast Pass is indeed a product of its time. But what is the product of tomorrow? Young people, such as teenagers and older children, are known to be fickle creatures. Confined to the dustbin of fads are things such as computer games, whizzers and cigarette holders – but will this one stick? The only way to find out is an aggressive marketing campaign, a bit of luck and hundreds of millions of pounds. As for what the young people think? 

As I drove back through the town I wondered, are these kids ready for contemporary minimalist sculpture or should we start them off with plasticine? Do young people have feelings? Can you show them a piece of music without them wanting to remix it on their stupid phones? Can you bring a child to the opera and have them recite the entire work on the way home without stopping the car not even once? The answer is: you better grab the Arts Fast Pass and find out!

Solution for Immigration (UK)

I step out from behind the curtain, spotlight on me, I walk to the lectern. No notes. My eyes start to adjust to the crowd in front of me. 

"Good evening Reform voters. I have been asked to come here to speak to you about alternative solutions to the migrant crisis, and so I shall, but first I have a question for you. How many refugees can this country take?"

"None!" shout members of the audience.

"Pathetic!" I shout back. "The answer is, millions of refugees. Our country should be strong enough that it can take millions of people fleeing war and famine."

"It is strong!" shouts someone else. I begin to laugh cruelly.

"At the very least, a country should be able to house and feed all its inhabitants, and still have double left over. Why aren't we doing that? You're going to tell me we can't afford it? That people work so that others get things for free? Are you stupid?" I yell. The audience begins getting restless, some people start booing. I clutch onto the lectern.

"To think that the only way to change a country through politics is limiting. That we only get a chance every few years to vote the next party in. More people don't vote than do. No, it is time we stood up for our country. We do not need permission, nor to be told what to do. The people shall make this country bountiful."

"Firstly, we need to grow our own food. Every garden and piece of public land shall be farmed, market gardens mixing trees with crops with flowers. Place value in the soil, as that is where all food stems. A street should be able to provide for itself. Neighbours connect solar panels and share energy. Libraries can loan power tools. Every street can have a few chickens and a sheep, perhaps." I say. Some of the audience laughs.

"All of this can be done with what already exists. We are not waiting for a vote or go protesting or replacing those in power. All of this is agreed from person to person, face to face."

"There is the idea of self sufficiency. We had already come up with a better way back when we were cavemen. Shared sufficiency changes intensive work alone to lighter work together. This would allow more time to do what we pleased, with our basic necessities covered through actual work."

"You saying we should go back to farming?"

"Yes! A proper days work. Not sitting bone idle in some office somewhere, all the food you eat being processed, your body getting weaker by the day. A days labour. It doesn't matter if you were born here or you come here, you still put the work in, side by side with the rest of us. Its not just growing food, its building homes, infrastructure, furniture, tools, everything."

"Who's going to make the medicines?" calls someone near the front.

"We are. We already have the knowledge and equipment to make our own drugs. We can grow the sources of medicines from cultivating the right plants." I say. Some people scoff. "Where do you think drugs come from? Most of its plants. Then some powder mixed in."

"I can do all that myself. I built a bunker already. And have a hundred tins of beans." calls the man.

"Similar to how parents who home school their child joining up with other home schooling parents to form shared teaching groups and eventually reinventing the school, being highly individualistic takes more effort than working together."

"At least I got a choice."

"I am not removing that choice, just providing another. Let us think for a moment of the future of this century;

We cannot take for granted things like food, water and electricity. Every nation needs to be able to provide for itself, not this web of global production and transportation. Climate change, warfare, pandemics, whatever, we cannot rely that things will continue as they are. Most of the world already lives like this. We need to return to our roots and be caretakers of this beautiful, unique world. It is so precious that we cannot afford to close our eyes to the impact we are having on it. We can fix it still. If your needs are met and the work you do is meaningful, life is all the more sweet.

How do you do it? One house at a time, one neighbour at a time. You knock on doors and get to know people. You share resources and knowledge. You get them activated so they can continue recruiting more people. Garden fences shall come down and the land be fed. Share cars, share food, share books. Who needs help? What can you do? We do not need to wait for another election or decide on politics or deal with any of that any more. We rebuild the country by ourselves and do it together.

And so to answer the question how to solve immigration, it is that the immigrant works alongside the citizen. That is it. There are those that cannot work, and so the greater labour covers those that can't. What about those who are lazy, feckless and otherwise resistant to work? Actual labour that means something, where the body is strengthened along with your ties to fellow workers, is much different from the way most jobs are. The jobs of the future are builder, forester, gardener, not customer services apprenticeships for adults. Let us build homes from wood, generate our own energy, know that we will be covered should anything go wrong. 

The vilification of any group of people is a smokescreen by those in actual power. They want to get away with lining their own pockets and sorting their friends out than doing anything about the average person living in this country. I am not dumb enough to say all immigrants are bad, just as I wouldn't say all reform voters are bad. You get some dickheads wherever you go. What we can do is have closer community ties, get to know each other better, get to do something when problems that come up. Bad things happen behind closed doors on streets where nobody knows one another. We need to get outside. We all just need to get outside and get to know one another.

TrueBro Podcast Dissection

I’m greeted by a teenage boy with a t-shirt on that says ‘ALPHA’. He walks me through the fire exits, the large bottles of water they have, the contract. I sign before kicking the door open and entering the podcast studio.

“Alright! How’s it going my man?” says the co-host. There are two co-hosts and an array of models sat around a circular table. All across it are laid cigars, roast chickens and piles of legal highs that the co-hosts sponsor throughout the podcast. I sit down. On the 4k cameras I look like shit. People realise how old I am.

“Alright, alright, alright.” I say, mimicking Matthew McConaughey lamely. I can tell the women are revolted by me. The men are eager for my attention.

“So, you used to post some pretty edgy content. Are you going to stand up right now and own it?”

“You mean I did it? Sure.” I say. A gorilla roaring sound effect is played whilst a 3D replica of the crown from Game of Thrones spins and is placed onto my head in post production.

“That’s uh, what I like about you, uh, you just kinda, you know, heh, you say it how, how it is.” said the other co-host, trying to light a cigar. The production people behind the camera squirm, backlit by the array of lights placed on the other side of the room.

“Let me set the scene. I was twenty five goddamn years old. I’d just won my first Pulitzer. It wasn’t like nowadays when people tell you stuff is going bad. At the time, I saw injustice and tried to express that through my writing. I was interested in the power structures behind media, science, society, you know? I wanted to replicate an exaggerated view of the world as that is its true essence.” I say, hogging the mic.

“Look bro, we don’t care about that woke shit.” Laughs one co-host. The other has this horrible sneering laugh but is dead in the eyes.

“Go on, say it. Say you’re a little beta bitch cuck soyboy and think women are real.” Says the other. I take a look at both of them, then take out a pack of Mayfair from the top pocket of my shirt. It has no cancer warnings on, these are vintage smokes. I pop open the top and the sweet smell, almost gingery, hits me even beneath the foil top. I peel it back and see twenty cigarettes, white filter tips, giraffe patterned filter. Give the bottom a soft flick and a few lurch out, take it out as you push the others in.

The key to smoking is increasing the pressure in your mouth from the cigarette, then inhaling the contents of your mouth. You can drink and smoke at the same time, but it is often easier to just do one at a time. I light the cigarette and blow it in both their faces.

“Fuck off mate.” I say, flicking the cigarette at one of them, he leaps and yelps.

“What are you doing!”

“How about you finish that goddamn sentence with a question mark you piece of shit.” I say, pulling the revolver from my pocket, bringing it up and cocking it.

“Hey now, calm down man!”

“What, you think this is real?” I say, turning and shooting him five times. He screamed, twitching in his seat before realising I had a water pistol. It had all been a farce. We all laughed and settled back down.

“I changed my mind about a lot of things. Its good to grow. If we’re going to judge a person now on what they had done in the past, can a person ever be forgiven? If not, then what is the purpose of discussing such things. If it is preordained that we cannot grow then the idea things could ever improve is impossible.”

“So why keep them up then?”

“My posts?”

“Yeah bro, are you fucking stupid?”

“Look. I’ve said and done some shit. I own it, I said it, I say different things now.”

“Oh my god is bro doing an internet apology?” laughs a co-host

“For real?” says the other,

“I do not apologise as I do not deserve forgiveness.”

Supreme Court Ruling decides who is a Woman

The Supreme Court recently changed the rules on who is a woman. On Wednesday, in a closed room, Lord Hodge came to a decision that affects trans women as part of anti-discrimination legislation. The case was brought to the court by a group of campaigners (Scotland Woman), who celebrated the perceived win yesterday and wore t-shirts with dictionary quotes on.

What does this ruling mean for the wider society? Let's take a look at some of the consequences that the campaigners have definitely thought through and are proud about.

Firstly, everyone entering a public bathroom in the UK will have to have their genitals checked. In the first months this will need to be done manually by bathroom inspectors, who will have mirrors on the end of telescopic steel tubes that they check anyone entering a bathroom with. The lengthy process of taking a DNA swab, sending it to a lab, analysing it and then sending the results back to the bathroom would be inconvenient, so in order to ensure the safety and dignity of all bathroom users, G4S will take on the government contract of checking between everybodies legs. 

This will of course be replaced in the coming months with advanced robotic cameras that can scan the crotch of adults and young people entering a bathroom and use advanced artificial intelligence to check if they are biologically compatible to use a toilet. This information is sensitive and covered under the Genital Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), though of course will need to be manually cross-checked by humans in a satelitte office. This multi-billion dollar technology may seem like a waste of money to some, as is the addition of multiple bathrooms to trains, aeroplanes and private homes, but ultimately worth it.

There's also the complication of sports. Now trans women will need to share locker rooms with cis men, although due to the risk posed by cis men generally, another changing room will need to be inside the male changing room and vice versa. This division of rooms will continue to account for the range of genes across society, with those with a proclivity for violence or banter being separated from those genetically sensitive or shy, for example. 

This court ruling also sets the precedence for other genetic decisions, such as those with genes for being tall needing to have their arms and legs broken in order to not have a genetic advantage over other players in basketball, or for those that show intelligence to have their brains drilled so as not to pose any genetic threat in the game of chess. In order to have a fair and equal society, we must ensure that all people are equalised through the law of averages.

The gender critical campaigners are happy, but what about everybody else? Has all of this been worth it? Are the other issues facing women - such as equality, safety and opportunity - also solved with this ruling? The gender critical campaigners think so. If life was like a board game, this ruling has looked at the rules again and again and after hours of arguing, managed to get an interpretation of a sentence to go in their favour. Many will look back on their lives and think, it might have taken years of campaigning, millions of pounds of donations, almost unlimited hours of arguing on the internet and breaking relationships between family and friends, but now they get to take a piss without a trans woman listening in on them. So who's to say if this was good or bad? Only God can judge. And a few people in Scotland apparently.

As trans rights are human rights, we could see this as being a sign of the changes to come. People have protested and died for equality, the right to exist, but it turns out this no longer matters because a childrens book author went mad. For a country where its main virtue is spite, this is another celebration for the crab people. As for the rest of us, we can only pray that the Stonehenge god will return.

My 2025 update

I come home after a hard day at the office. I park my car, a 2024 Cybertruck, on the home asphalt and start hitting the vape. On the front law a sprinkler resets before clipping jets of water across the grass. It is Tuesday. Enter the house, my wife and children greet me. In slow motion, I grab one of the rascals and hoist them onto my hip.

“I love you daddy.” they whisper, a little hand curled against my collar.

We all sit round a table and say our prayers. We bless the God of this world for the food we are about to eat, tracing its supply chain across eight different countries until being delivered onto our plateware. I hit the vape then we begin to eat.

Later. I sit by a globe with a dull light inside. It is a map of the Earth. I am reading stories to my two sleeping children and catch my own reflection in a mirror. I stare back.

Night time, lying on the bed, light from the ensuite slicing across the bed, across my feet.

“What time are you getting up tomorrow?”

“Seven.”

“Make it half seven and now we’re talking.” she said. My intelligent, beautiful, angelic wife had said something to me, had graced my presence through not only acknowledgement, but an order. I nod, again and again, I nod.

“You’re right, you’re right.” I keep repeating until I lie in bed and pretend to go to sleep. The lights go out.

 

And then, there is no-one. 

 

Somewhere there is a click. 

A man steps forward.

“Welcome to the family experience.” he says, holding out a QR code on a pamphlet.

“You mean, none of that was real?”

“It’s a digital illusion experience, cutting edge tech. You fuck with it?”

“Hell no brother. I’m all about authenticity. That virtual family stuff is like being in The Sims, nobody would ever do that.” I say, ripping the electrodes from my muscular body.

“We already sold a billion units. They are saying this is the ultimate game, you get a digital family and have to raise them into adults that can pay for your retirement.”

“Stop trying to sell it to me. Because I ain’t buying.” I says, hitting the vape.

“Like you got a choice.” He says. And we run towards each other and begin to fight.

 

I leave the stairway, catching my breath against the frame of a door. It had been a rough evening, I was ready to go home to my family and eat mushroom burritos. As I climbed into my Cybertruck and started the ignition I realised. I had no family. I was just a freelance reporter for multiple media conglomerates, writing for everyone from BBC News to Vice Magazine. I was a hot shot journalist, I turned down every award I was offered, but I was at the centre of every major news story you’ve ever heard of. I guess you could say I’m kind of a big fricking deal, so when these pencil pushers try and overtake my mind with experimental drugs and virtual reality, let’s just say they’ll never work in this town again.

Don’t they know who I am? 

Sometimes I walk into a shop and they don’t give me a glass of water. Sometimes I walk down the street and the story goes;

“Hey, I recognise you.”

“Ah, have you seen Saturday Night Live?”

“Haha, what? Sure thing!”

“Then get the hell out of my bloody way.” I would scream through gritted teeth.

Sometimes, the pressure of being one of the worlds best ever journalists can get to me. People say to me, I have imposter syndrome, and so I say back to them, what does that even mean? Unfortunately I don’t know. I feel like I deserve the glory that is owed to me because some weeks I work more than forty hours. Sometimes even at weekends. I give up a lot of my own time to report on the hardest hitting stories of our lifetimes. Yet there I was, smoking ketamine and playing a family videogame, thinking; is this good actually? Why not. It is difficult to say if some of us are better off existing in a videogame, but its not too bad of a deal when you think about it. 

Thanks for reading, remember to subscribe to the news. Go to a guy on the corner handing out newspapers and throw him a nickel, straighten the paper out with a flick of the hands and see a photo of a person opening a newspaper and on that page there is a person opening a newspaper and on that page there is a person opening a newspaper and so on.

My lecture at MMU about contemporary art and why it matters

(Note: This lecture was given at Manchester Metropolitan University in April 2025 around the topic "Contemporary Art and why it matters". It was received poorly)

 

“Art has never been more popular. A person will see more art in a day than a person a century ago would see in their lifetime. We are surrounded by art, so much so, it has invaded almost every aspect of our lives and is as normal as the sun shining.”

And so stood the art student, placing a hand on his chin, curling a lip and asking “What is art?” before sitting back down again, congratulated by his peers.

“Oh, you mean you don’t know? Look at that guy, he doesn’t even know what art is.”

The audience then burst into laughter and applause, which became a seventeen minute standing ovation. Once they have settled down, I hitch a leg up on a chair and point behind me with a thumb jutting from my fist.

“Everything’s art. Anyone can be an artist. We settled that already. The real question is; is it any good?”

The crowd begins to murmur between themselves, asking ChatGPT what to say next. Another art student stands up, saying something so quietly that the sound doesn’t escape past his lips. A microphone attached to a robotic arm whizzes over above his head.

“-so who’s to actually say what’s good or bad?” he finished. I sigh. I slap my forehead and slick my hair back with sweat.

“Nobody can say if art is good or bad as it can’t be measured, unlike gravity, which is bad or like speed, which is good. Whatever a person’s view is on art is their opinion, and it is fun to talk to somebody who has seen the same art as you and hear what they thought about it.”

“Hey wiseguy.” Another student. “Who’s better at art then, Leonardo da Vinci or a monkey?”

“Bro is going to say the same.” Another student whispered.

“Watch, he’s going to say it.”

“Our culture is obsessed with better than or worse than. Top ten lists. Power levels. Oscar awards. Does it matter if Leonardo da Vinci is better than a monkey? Can we not view the art of either and see their unique qualities, to gain a deeper understanding into our own lives?”

“Leonardo da Vinci is the best artist. Mona Lisa. End of.”

“Well you can’t really-“

“End of.” said the student again. The witless audience had now turned on me, screaming and laughing at the Mona Lisa fan.

“Is the best artist the most popular?”

“Yes.” The auditorium said in unison.

“Well, that brings me back to my point earlier, I feel art has become quantified in such a way, measured in followers and likes, listens, views, whatever, and then awarded by the platforms which they exist on, through profit shares from advertising, sponsorship, and so on, that this is the environment which we should understand contemporary art and how that reflects our current society.”

One member of the audience pretends to snore loudly, but I press on.

“Art reflects the world from which it is created. The Sistine Chapel, Guernica, War of the Worlds, Pokemon, art can only be created in the environment from which it comes into existence. And so I ask you, what is the art from this era? What famous works can you think of from the last decade? Anything?”

The audience mumbled amongst themselves, again going onto their phones to ask ChatGPT.

“Stranger Things.”

“A tv show embedded with contemporary iconography of the 80s on a service designed by Silicon Valley where you rent things. The eighties didn’t actually look like that, you know? Everyone smoked and neon was never that bright.”

“Unc can remember the 80s.”

“Anything else?”

“Coffin dance meme.”

“Great suggestion. A video of dancing Ghanaian pallbearers set to Dutch house music during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

“So what you’re saying is, memes can be like, art?”

“Like I said five minutes ago, anything can be. Some in the audience suggested that popularity was a signifier of art being good, and so the most popular meme of an age will be how that time is remembered.”

“So what you’re saying is, people in the future will remember this time as Skibidi Toilet?”

“As I cunningly alluded to earlier, the way the present is felt can be quite different from how that time is viewed later. The aesthetics of what we think of when we think of the eighties almost entirely stems from Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. When future generations create art set in this time period, they will draw heavily on its popular artforms. Which is, advertising, video games and memes.”

“Bro said advertising was art.”

“You win the internet today, sir!” shouted a guy at the back. I slammed a hand into my lectern.

“If you listen to me rather than thinking of what to interrupt me with, maybe you’ll learn something, right? Isn’t this why you’re all here?” a camera flash goes off in the audience. Somebody starts filming me on Tik Tok live.

“Prof is crashing out!” laughed someone. My head sunk down.

“Advertising combines images and words to deliver an idea to the viewer, in this instance, to buy it. There is a billion dollar industry of collecting items in their original packaging, so much so that its contents cease to matter and the packaging is wrapped in further packaging to protect that. Of course advertising is art, you are just too weak to admit that whatever ideas you have about what art should be bear any resemblance to actual art.” I say, my voice quieting to a whisper. The audience all lean forward.

“You know I am speaking the truth. That art has been hijacked by capitalism, as everything else has in our present. Why does a gallery ask you for your Instagram details? It is not a website for a portfolio but a way for artistic quality to be measured. Popularity begets popularity. Your follower numbers are put onto a spreadsheet so they can be measured against other artists, filtered by the biggest number to ensure any exhibition is popular and acts as an advertisement that the gallery is relevant. Feedback forms, digital tickets, Excel spreadsheets, more numbers to show funding bodies as the bigger the number, the better the show.”

“Say now, that’s not fair. Loads of art is in galleries that barely anyone sees. The curator might like them or its just right that work is shown.” Says another member of the audience. I sigh.

“Of course that happens. But I am not saying everything that happens in existence as I want to make a point, okay? Do I need to acknowledge the history of Mesopotamian sculpture, the works of Hegel, the effects of World War 2, the invention of the ballpoint pen? Or can I get on with my lecture?”

“Continue.”

“You have sold your attention to the lowest bidder. I bet if I asked anyone here to come up with a playlist of music to go and pick grandma up from the airport, you would fold like an envelope. And before you interrupt again, I am talking about a list of music you would put together, not the Spotify algorithm.”

“Hey man, I’m a DJ and I could come up with a playlist for any occasion.”

“Do you want a medal? That is the essence of a DJ. If you couldn’t do that, you wouldn’t be a DJ. But how much of what you choose would be things you have found, in boxes in charity shops, car boots, friends houses? Huh?”

“Well actually all of it, I specialise in back to back sets of Hungarian classical pieces for flute and rare Barry Manilow twelve inches. I do the second Friday of every month at an ironic café.”

“Then you’ve got me. My entire argument is ripped to shreds. I am obsolete. I think I’ll take my leave and reflect on the direction my life is going.” I said, picking up my jacket that I had thrown on the floor. “Just before I go, can I ask you one question?”

“Spill the tea, jellybean.”

“What was the last film you watched?”

“Guardians of the Galaxy 2.” He said, and the crowd suddenly hushes. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Did you watch that on Blu-Ray?”

“Disney plus.”

“So you see, in one area you actively engage your agency as somebody who collects and plays records, but when it comes to film, you’re basically like a pig eating slop, just whatever is in front of you, you’ll chew it up?”

“It’s a good movie! It’s about fatherhood!”

“I wouldn’t care if its about the Treaty of Versailles, the context from which is exists and goes to support is primarily capitalistic. This isn’t me remarking on the quality of Guardians of the Galaxy 2, but surely even you can see, it is also a product made by a billion dollar company.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing is wrong with that.” I said, pinching the top of my nose. “I am not saying any of this is good or bad or worse or better. I am saying it how it is, and it is your interpretation of how things are that then dictate its qualities. Come on, even dogs understand this.”

“So what you’re saying is, that the world we live in is almost entirely dictated by capitalism and it is through the lens of capital that we create and understand art and that the way in which we quantify and measure quality is also inherently capitalistic?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“What is this, an improv class? That’s it, that’s the lecture.” I said. The audience turns to each other, confused.

“Yeah, we know all that.”

“Doesn’t the knowledge that everything you create will be uploaded to a website for a little number to go up, and likely not exist in ten years, make you feel something?”

“What’s the alternative? Do you expect the next generation of artists to somehow overthrow the system, do basket weaving workshops in villages, survive off stolen bread and rainwater? We cannot blame a person for engaging in a system of oppression just as much as we can’t expect a medieval peasant to rise up and get rid of a king. The mode of control, whether it be divine, regal or capital, doesn’t matter. Artists respond to their surroundings and create work that reflects that. You are asking us to be revolutionaries, yet we are more interested in making art.” Said one art student, who had gone on for quite a while. The robotic arm holding the microphone kept moving away before being pulled back as they had continued.

“An artist may make the soundtrack to a revolution, design clothing for the oppressed, create forty two hour long video essays about the Beverly Hillbillies, but it is the people that make the change.” Added another student.

“Yeah, if you want artists to be revolutionaries, you should give us the tools to do so!”

“Shush!” I shush them all. “Never in my life have I been so interrupted. I have been brought here to deliver a lecture and instead I am squabbling with reactionary buffoons offended at the idea that someone might have a thought. At the risk of repeating myself, your perspective that artists should do this or that in response to my statements are absurd drivel. I will not, I shall not, listen any longer to your foolishness. Now if you will be so kind as to listen to my closing statement, I shall leave this auditorium post-haste and not take a glance over my shoulder back at you wretches all huddling around a single braincell as if it were a candle in midwinter. May I finish?” I said, my face turning bright red. I realised tears had welled up in my eyes and so stretched my lids wide apart so that the surface tension wouldn’t break and I would have been revealed as a crybaby on top of everything else.

Instead, there were no tears. The audience had settled down. I rolled my jacket round my hands and sat on the floor. The tide of adrenaline had crashed and was now on the retreat, making me feel incredibly sleepy. I clutched at my body for the microphone, yanking it from the little box attached to my belt and spoke directly into it as if God himself was speaking.

“Have you…Have you ever wondered why AI art is a thing? Like, what’s the deal with AI art? If people wanted a drawing of something, they could have asked, you know?” I said, laughing at my own joke. “But, yeah. Like, it’s marketing for AI, isn’t it? They knew people wouldn’t like AI if it replaced their job or anything. AI art is a marketing stunt by billionaires, that’s why they’re putting so much money into it. You see some AI art, it doesn’t really matter, does it? Its like someone else telling you their dream. No, the main thing is, you know an AI did it. That’s what it is, it’s like, art is being used to propagandise AI. You get that, right? That’s obvious. At least, it’s kinda obvious to me. You know?” I said. Then I walked away, never to see any of them again.